05-06-2000

CONGRESS: The Senate Shuffle

Five years ago, when he first took his seat in the Senate, Republican Rick
Santorum of Pennsylvania wore the kind of look that said, "Get in my
way, and you might just wind up covered in tire tracks." From the
start, Santorum and many of the 10 other Senators swept into office by the
Republican tidal wave of 1994 were on a mission. They were willing to take
on even their most senior colleagues as they pushed their agenda of
slashing government programs and taxes, balancing the budget, and enacting
term limits.


The fervor of these Senate Republican freshmen was in keeping with the
political zeitgeist of the moment. The election, after all, had taken the
Republican Party out of the political wilderness and put it in control of
both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. And the
first-termers owed their victories, at least in part, to the public's
unhappiness with the status quo in Washington. In 1994, the old
"throw-the-bums-out" slogan had become a political
reality.


Today, it is obvious that times have changed dramatically, because many of
the Senate Republicans who are facing the voters for the first time as
incumbents are in the midst of a makeover. Especially for those in highly
competitive races, revolutionary fervor is out and incrementalism is in.
Their sharp elbows are not as apparent. And their voting records, in many
cases, are not as conservative as they were a few years ago.


Santorum concedes that he, for one, has softened his very rough edges.
"If I haven't matured in the last six years, then I am doing
something wrong," he said. "Obviously, you grow and you change,
but I will tell you that there are certain things that I am very
passionate about."


That may be true, but it is also apparent that six years is an eon
politically. For some time now, congressional Republicans have been
marching toward the middle. "All that's left of the revolutionary
fires of `94 are the embers, if that," said Marshall Wittmann, a
director of congressional relations for the Heritage Foundation. "For
the most part, the Class of `94 has become more pragmatic. They have
tempered some of the rhetoric from `94 and they have adjusted to the new
political circumstances."


In both chambers, the GOP agenda has been tempered, too. This year's To Do
list reflects polls that show the public is tired of partisan bickering
and is most concerned about such issues as education, Social Security, and
health care-areas where the Democrats traditionally have been the
strongest with voters. Republicans have backed off huge tax cuts in favor
of a more targeted approach. They've also shown support, in varying
degrees, for providing prescription drug benefits to seniors, increasing
the minimum wage, and expanding patients' rights. They hope that this
agenda-coupled with the good economy-will help them to keep their
majorities in November.


The conventional wisdom certainly suggests such an outcome in the Senate,
where the GOP now enjoys a 55-45 edge. Senate Republicans, who have to
defend 19 seats, face a disadvantage compared with the Democrats, who have
just 14 to protect. But most pundits and pollsters see this as an
incumbents' year, and barring some wholly unexpected development, they
predict that Senate Democrats will pick up only one to three seats. (For a
rundown on all of the competitive Senate races, see Charlie Cook's
analysis, p. 1431.)


Such predictions are enough to make the Senate Republicans' campaign point
man, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, about as giddy as you'll ever hear him.
"I believe we will achieve our goal of continuing to control the
Senate for four Congresses in a row for the first time since the
`20s," McConnell, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, said in an interview. "The chances of increasing our
numbers are nil. But I think we will be in the majority come January of
`01."


For their part, Senate Democrats would like to see a replay of 1986, when
a half-dozen of the GOP Senators who were swept in on Ronald Reagan's
coattails in 1980 were swept out when voters took a second look at them.
This campaign season, the Democrats hope to make the case that the
Republican first-termers are far out of step with their constituents,
notwithstanding any recent maneuvers to moderate their voting
records.


In analyzing the political map, Democratic strategists concede that two of
the Republican Senators from the Class of `94-Wyoming's Craig Thomas and
Arizona's Jon Kyl-are virtually assured of re-election because they are
from rock-ribbed GOP states. Two others-Tennessee's Bill Frist and Ohio's
Mike DeWine-have been helped by the Democrats' failure to field
challengers who look very strong, at least as of today. And Olympia Snowe,
a rare GOP moderate in the Senate, has a political outlook that matches up
well with independent-minded Maine voters. (Two other Republican Senators
first elected in 1994-Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee and James M. Inhofe of
Oklahoma-filled out short terms and were re-elected in 1996.)


But that still leaves four freshman GOP Senators in competitive contests:
Santorum, Spencer Abraham of Michigan, John Ashcroft of Missouri, and Rod
Grams of Minnesota. Each of the races has its own dynamic. As Mary
Matalin, a Republican pundit and co-host of CNN's Crossfire, put it in an
interview, "It's going to be mano a mano, state by
state."


Pugnacious Pennsylvanians


Santorum and his opponent, Rep. Ron Klink, a four-term Democratic moderate
from steel country in the western part of the state, insist that the
campaign will be fought on their records and their competing visions for
Pennsylvania. But that may not be the half of it.


Santorum, 41, and Klink, 48, reportedly can't stand each other. Both men
deny it, and they insist that their personal feelings would have no
bearing on the campaign, anyway. Still, mutual disdain may very well come
to play an important role in the race.


For example, when asked about Santorum's decision to go to the Senate
floor a dozen times in 1995 with a "Where's Bill?" sign that
taunted President Clinton for not producing a balanced budget, Klink got
personal. "I would simply tell you that I did not have to get elected
to Congress to learn good manners and good behavior," he said in an
interview. "I will let the people of the state of Pennsylvania make
their judgment as to whether or not they are proud of the behavior of the
junior Senator or not."


Santorum downplays the episode as simply reflecting his frustration at the
time. "I guess we all do things that are impulsive at the moment, and
I was very frustrated at what I think was the disingenuous behavior of the
President," he said in an interview. "Certainly I would do it
differently now."


Santorum's take-no-prisoners approach was on display almost as soon as he
arrived in the Senate after serving two terms in the House. He was the
Senate's youngest member at 36, but within a few months, he sent shock
waves through the decorous, slow-moving chamber by seeking to boot
then-Sen. Mark O. Hatfield, R-Ore., from his perch as Appropriations
Committee chairman.


It was an audacious move by Santorum, who was just 8 years old when
Hatfield was first elected to the Senate in 1966. But Santorum was
incensed that Hatfield cast the lone Republican vote in the Senate against
the balanced-budget constitutional amendment. Hatfield's vote doomed the
proposal, which was a key priority in the Contract With America, the
campaign blueprint that had helped catapult the GOP into control of
Congress.


Hatfield survived the challenge to his chairmanship, but feathers were
ruffled. Former Sen. Alan K. Simpson, R-Wyo., described that episode in a
recent interview as an "absurd" move against "a guy who
votes with us 90 percent of the time." He said that during a
Republican Caucus meeting at the time, senior members emphasized to their
junior colleagues, "Hey guys, maybe this is the Rule-or-Ruin
Battalion, but this isn't the way you keep a majority or keep cohesiveness
in the U.S. Senate."


After his controversial early splash, Santorum has seemed less combative,
and his voting record, like those of other Senate GOP freshmen in
competitive races, has become less conservative. In his first year, he
ranked as the 10th most-conservative Senator, according to National
Journal's review of 51 key roll-call votes, but he has never again ranked
that high. In the 1999 NJ survey, the most recent one, he compiled his
least-conservative rating since he has been in the Senate.


Notwithstanding those changes, Santorum said he sees his record as
"square in the middle of the Republican Party." But Klink had a
different take: The Senator's shift, he maintained, reflected "a lot
of wartime conversions."


Klink also argued that Santorum cannot run away from a record that puts
him "out of step with the interests of families" in the state.
"He made public comments that he wanted to privatize Social Security
and that he wants to raise the retirement age to 70 or higher," Klink
noted. He contended that such positions are "completely out of the
mainstream."


Klink said he has had to play plenty of defense to stop Republicans such
as Santorum from destroying the social safety net. "I never dreamed
that when I got here in 1993, we would have debates over things like
Medicare, Social Security, the 40-hour workweek, and the rights of labor
unions to form and to communicate with their members," he
said.


But even as he attacks Santorum, Klink, a former television anchor for
KDKA in Pittsburgh, is an unusual Democratic Senate candidate in that he
shares his opponent's views on restricting abortion and on opposing gun
control-two hot-button issues that will be highlighted in other
campaigns.


When asked whether Santorum's vote in early 1999 to convict Clinton in the
impeachment trial would be an issue, Klink said: "It appears to be to
a lot of voters. It is not one that I raise." But he is not reticent
in making the case that it was "very clearly a bad vote." Klink
added: "The Republic was not in danger. The behavior of the President
was reprehensible, but it did not demand the extraordinary process of
removing a President and overturning an election and throwing the nation
into political chaos."


Santorum responds that his impeachment vote was not about politics, but
about principle. "I feel very comfortable defending the position I
took, and if it's a help, so be it, and if it's not a help, so be
it," he said. "C'est la vie."


When asked about his accomplishments, Santorum points to his role in
managing the welfare reform bill as it went through the Senate three times
until Clinton finally signed it in 1996. He has also waged a relentless
crusade against "partial-birth abortion," though his efforts
have been turned back by presidential vetoes three times.


The youthful Santorum is so confident he will prevail in November that he
already is talking of running for Senate Republican Conference secretary
next year. For now, he says, his campaign in Pennsylvania "is going
to come down to the job that I have done."


But the race may, instead, come down to money. Klink is strapped, having
borrowed $300,000 against his house during the primary campaign. He
decisively won that contest on April 4 by 15 percentage points over the
second-place finisher in a field of five challengers. But his Federal
Election Commission filings show that he is $446,000 in debt and has
slightly more than $119,000 on hand, while Santorum's war chest contains
about $3.7 million. When pressed on his finances, Klink is quick to say
that Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and the Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee have agreed to help, but he acknowledges he must raise
between $6 million and $7 million to be competitive.


And Klink must excite core Democrats, particularly in Philadelphia-not an
easy task given his conservative stances on abortion and gun control. Look
for lots of fiery rhetoric from the Democratic candidate to rouse the
party faithful. But Santorum is no slouch when it comes to campaigning. He
polished off Doug Walgren, a seven-term House member, in 1990 and an
incumbent Senator, Harris Wofford, in 1994. Given the two candidates'
scorn for each other, this race could turn out to be one of the fiercest
battles in the country-so long as Klink can raise enough money.


Mischief in Michigan


Abraham is a low-key Senator who is comfortable working behind the scenes,
but he's been a tad defensive and out of sorts lately. He has been hit by
a barrage of TV, radio, and newspaper ads throughout his home state of
Michigan that blasts his proposal to increase the number of visas for
skilled foreign professionals. The ads, paid for by an anti-immigration
group called the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), argue
that Abraham's initiative would cost jobs-a powerful message in a heavily
unionized state.


In an interview, Abraham bristles at the mention of FAIR, a group he
called "the Ku Klux Klan of immigration." When asked whether his
support for legislation to boost the number of high-tech workers is linked
to a desire to curry favor with deep-pocketed executives in Silicon
Valley, he went ballistic. "If you want to do the bidding of a hate
group, go ahead, but, buster, that's not where I am coming from,"
Abraham snapped, although he later apologized.


Abraham, the 47-year-old grandson of Lebanese immigrants, explained that
his views on this issue "are pretty deep-seated, based on my own
heritage." In fact, he has been passionate about immigration since
his first year in the Senate, before the high-tech community had become
such a significant force. Early on, Abraham went toe-to-toe against
Simpson, who was then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Immigration
Subcommittee and who favored reducing legal immigration.


But poll numbers suggest that making immigration one of his signature
issues has not helped Abraham politically in Michigan, where he is locked
in a very tight race against Democratic Rep. Deborah Ann Stabenow, 50.
Pollster Ed Sarpolus of Lansing-based EPIC-MRA noted that Abraham's job
performance numbers are "really pitiful," and he said that the
Senator has done a poor job of connecting with Michigan voters. Sarpolus
added that the immigration issue is hurting Abraham because of xenophobia
and ever-present worries over job security, even in a strong
economy.


Even a big fan of Abraham's, Stephen Moore, worries that the Senator has
left few footprints in Michigan. "He just hasn't done enough of the
county fair stuff," said Moore, the president of the Club for Growth,
a political action committee that backs conservative candidates. "He
doesn't have name I.D."


Stabenow has used the flap over FAIR's ads to highlight the need for
campaign finance reform that would curb spending by outside interest
groups. But, more subtly, she seems to be trying to convey that Abraham's
zeal on the immigration issue is not matched by similar energy on other
bread-and-butter issues that matter to average citizens.


"He's obviously picked that as a major focus," Stabenow told
National Journal. "When we look at the things that most directly
affect Michigan families, I would choose to focus on lowering the cost of
prescription drugs, improving the quality and safety of our schools, and
getting our fiscal house in order, as well as protecting Social Security
and Medicare."


Abraham-a former Michigan GOP chairman and deputy chief of staff to Vice
President Dan Quayle-is apparently concerned about such attacks. He has
strongly advocated slashing taxes, but he seemed to reverse course in
early April when he supported a proposal by Sen. Charles S. Robb, D-Va.,
to make new Medicare prescription drug benefits a higher priority than big
tax cuts.


The vote, albeit on a nonbinding amendment to the budget resolution, was
startling. After all, Abraham has been on a tax-cutting crusade almost
from the moment he took his Senate seat. From his advocacy of a 15 percent
across-the-board cut, which Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole
adopted as a key campaign plank in 1996, to his push in 1997 for a flat
tax, and then his support in 1998 for a $100 billion tax cut, Abraham had
never wavered on making tax cuts a top priority. That is, until a few
weeks ago.


So how could he justify his support for Robb's proposal, which won the
backing of just five other Republicans, including fellow first-termers
DeWine and Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island? "We need to act on both
of these issues-not just tax cuts," Abraham said.


Stabenow was unimpressed. "I am really glad that in his sixth year in
office, we have been able to change his vote," she said. "He
voted last summer against a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. The
people of Michigan deserve somebody who is going to be on their side every
year, not just the election year."


Abraham, in fact, was the eighth most-liberal Republican in the Senate in
1999, according to National Journal's vote ratings-by far his
least-conservative rating since his election. Abraham said the rating
simply reflected the fact that different issues were before the Senate.
When he arrived in the Senate, he said, the GOP agenda called for
balancing the budget, bringing an end to deficits, and reforming welfare.
"I was a leader in those fights," he said. "Now it is to
protect Social Security."


Not everybody is buying Abraham's explanation. "The guy has
completely caved on everything he was elected on, and he is running
pell-mell for the center," said Bill Ballenger, the publisher of the
independent biweekly newsletter Inside Michigan Politics. "He has
basically jettisoned every article in his Contract With America
suitcase."


The Senator counters that it is his Democratic opponent who should not be
allowed to cast herself as a moderate. Before her election to the House in
1996, Stabenow spent 16 years in the state Legislature-years in which
Abraham contends she was "part of the big-tax, big-spend approach
that nearly destroyed the state."


Look for this campaign to go down to the wire, unless Abraham racks up
such a big financial edge as to overwhelm Stabenow. She is about halfway
to her $6 million fund-raising goal, while Abraham has already amassed $9
million and is shooting for $11 million. And that doesn't count the
millions that outside groups such as FAIR will spend. When asked to
describe the biggest obstacle to a victory, Stabenow said simply,
"Basically not having them just bury me in negative
ads."


Wrathful Warriors in Missouri


The most bitter race for a Senate seat may be the one in Missouri that
pits two-term Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan against Ashcroft, a former
two-term governor. "It will be very nasty-and the most exciting race
I've watched since I've been in Missouri," said Ken Warren, a
political science professor at St. Louis University for the past 25
years.


Things got dirty so fast that even before the first pitch of the Major
League Baseball season, the two candidates felt compelled to sign a
"Framework of Civility" pact. First, the Democrats went after
Ashcroft last fall for taking the lead in torpedoing the nomination of
Ronnie White, a black Missourian, to a federal judgeship. Then they
lambasted the Senator for accepting an honorary degree from Bob Jones
University in South Carolina, which only recently lifted a ban on
interracial dating.


As the air got thick with the suggestion that Ashcroft was racially
insensitive-or worse: Out came a photo, courtesy of the GOP, showing
Carnahan in blackface at a civic club minstrel show in 1961. The governor
called it a regrettable part of that era, and the two candidates signed
their pledge. Plenty of people are skeptical it will survive until the
baseball All Star game in July.


Although they are from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum and have
quite different styles, both men have demonstrated tremendous skill at
racking up big vote totals. Theirs is sort of a throwback contest,
featuring Ashcroft, 57, in the role of the traditional, family-values
conservative vs. Carnahan, 66, as the New Deal populist liberal.


But so far, the not-so-subtle shift by Ashcroft away from the Far Right
has been getting lots of ink. Ashcroft's record in 1997 and 1998 put him
in a tie as the most-conservative Senator, according to National Journal's
rankings, but by last year, his votes had made him only the 15th
most-conservative member. Ashcroft's shift has been so pronounced that it
was featured in a USA Today story in March and a front-page Kansas City
[Mo.] Star story in April.


Why the change? Ashcroft declined to be interviewed, but some of his most
conservative stances in 1997 and 1998 may be explained by his apparent
strategy to try to outflank Steve Forbes and other potential rivals as he
contemplated a run for the Republican presidential nomination.


Back then, Ashcroft regularly criticized Clinton's supposed immorality and
even went after fellow Republicans for failing to "stand and
lead" on moral issues. Moreover, his view of politicians who steered
toward the middle was, to put it mildly, contemptuous. "There are two
things that you find in the middle of the road: a moderate and a dead
skunk, and I don't want to be either one of those," he said in a 1998
radio interview.


During that period, Ashcroft called for a $4 trillion tax cut over 10
years. He also supported using the Social Security surplus to pay for some
of those tax cuts. By last year, after he had decided to run for the
Senate instead of the presidency, Ashcroft no longer touted his ambitious
tax cut proposal. He also dumped the notion of allocating any part of the
Social Security surplus for what he now calls "irresponsible spending
or tax cuts."


Carnahan's campaign strategy will be to accentuate what he argues is a
chasm between Ashcroft's posture in Missouri and his votes in Washington.
"If John Ashcroft were actually voting consistently with his rhetoric
these days, he'd be the best Democratic vote in the Senate," said
Marc Farinella, Carnahan's campaign director. "John Ashcroft has not
been good for working families, despite what he says right now-and we will
be asking voters to look at the record, not just the
rhetoric."


But Carnahan is also going to have some explaining to do. His decision to
accede to the request of Pope John Paul II, made during the pontiff's
visit to Missouri in 1999, to commute the death sentence of a man
convicted of murdering two grandparents and their paraplegic grandson
caused a political firestorm. The governor, who has otherwise supported
the death penalty, failed to notify the grandson's parents that he was
commuting the sentence. Ashcroft responded by holding Senate hearings that
highlighted his proposal for giving victims or their relatives two months'
notice of a decision to commute a death sentence.


Similarly, Ashcroft, a strong opponent of abortion, will surely highlight
Carnahan's controversial veto of a bill to restrict late-term abortions in
1997. These two decisions by Carnahan will give Ashcroft an opening in
what will probably be an effort to paint the governor as a liberal who is
out of step with the state's values.


Farinella noted, however, that everyone in the state already knows that
the governor commuted the death sentence and vetoed the abortion bill.
"These were hugely high-visible things-and the people who don't like
what the governor did have made up their mind," he said. "Even
with the fact that everybody knows these things, we are in a statistical
dead heat."


With both candidates easily raising enough money to run all-out campaigns,
look for a six-month donnybrook before Election Day.


No Apologies in Minnesota


Grams' race is the toughest of the competitive Senate contests to
handicap, because Minnesota does not hold its Democratic primary until
September. The Senator's dream scenario would be for a knock-down battle
among the nine Democratic candidates that leaves the victor bloodied and
financially broke. But if either wealthy trial lawyer Michael Ciresi or
department store heir Mark Dayton is the Democratic nominee, money will
not be an issue.


Grams is the exception to the rule that Senate GOP first-termers in
competitive races are moving to the middle. He remains as adamant as ever
about his controversial stands in favor of privatizing Social Security and
replacing the tax code with a flat tax. "I always like to think that
I have a very deep rudder and keep a very straight course," Grams
told National Journal. "If you zigzag, then you have to try to
remember how you voted last time and why. Then you are putting your finger
to the wind."


In a state with a liberal tradition, Grams' positions would appear to be a
hard sell. But Minnesota is also increasingly iconoclastic, as shown by
the election of the Reform Party's Jesse Ventura as governor. That spirit
could work to give the straight-talking Grams a boost.


Still, the early stages of Grams' campaign have not exactly gone according
to plan. His campaign staff has faced shake-ups, and fund raising has not
gone all that well. In the first quarter of 2000, the campaign actually
spent more than it took in-$800,000 vs. $623,000-though it has a bit more
than $1 million on hand. His job-approval rating hovers around 43 percent
and has never topped 50 percent, according to Minneapolis Star Tribune
polls.


Grams, a former broadcast news anchor and one-term House member, won his
1994 Senate race against Ann Wynia, a longtime liberal state
representative, with less than 50 percent of the vote. He is not
well-known in the state, but then he has not made developing deeper
political roots there a priority.


"If the media doesn't say what you are doing, it's hard for people to
realize what you are doing," Grams said. "We are not known for
coming back and patting ourselves on the back and holding big press
conferences."


The 52-year-old Senator is clearly proudest of his successful drive for a
$500 per child tax credit, which was enacted in 1997. But his other
priorities, such as his call to overhaul the sacrosanct Social Security
system, will surely provoke attacks by the eventual Democratic nominee. A
preview of that line comes courtesy of the Ciresi campaign, whose
spokesman contended: "Grams wants to turn the most-successful
retirement system the world has ever seen over to stockbrokers and
investment bankers.... He wants to put the entire system at
risk."


Grams fully expects such hot rhetoric in a state where the elderly make up
a big chunk-about 13 percent-of the population. "If people use scare
tactics and lie to the seniors about what privatization would do, yes,
they could be scared," he said. "But ask them if they are happy
with an $800-a-month retirement check after a lifetime of work.... If they
can see their kids getting something better, or their grandchildren, I
think they would want to give them that option."


In the end, Grams' best hope may be to get a boost from the state's
growing populist element. Ventura's candidacy surely struck that chord and
attracted lots of young voters. But even in victory, Ventura only got 37
percent of the total vote. And a Democratic source scoffed at the notion
that Grams could pull off the same kind of campaign. "Grams is not
like Jesse running for governor, with the theme song from `Shaft,' "
said the source.


He is no celebrity, but Grams seems confident that in the upcoming clash
against a liberal Democrat, his forthright, unapologetic conservative
message will play just fine with Minnesotans.


Kirk Victor

National Journal